Reductions in examination work in the medical field have recently proceeded by introducing diverse automated devices. For testing in a hospital, the samples of inpatients and outpatients are collected from several sections of the hospital and collectively processed in a examination room. Test items for each sample are sent from doctors to the examination room by use of an online information processing system. Test results are then reported online from the examination room to the doctors. For many of test items on blood or urine, pretreatment for testing needs to be performed such as centrifugal processing, unplugging, dispensing, and the like. It takes much time for engagement in such pretreatment work and increases the total hours required to perform testing.
Next, the flow of a process to be performed by a general automated sample testing system is described. A test tube that holds a body fluid such as blood collected from a patient is held by a sample rack. The sample rack holding the test tube is loaded into the general automated sample testing system. Barcode information of the loaded sample is read in the system so that the sample type is recognized. As described above, the centrifugal process, unplugging, dispensing, and the like are performed as the pretreatment for the test process. The contents of the pretreatment vary depending on the sample type, for example, for a urine test, the centrifugal process does not need to be performed. A sample type that needs to be subjected to the centrifugal separation is a sample on which the unplugging and dispensing are performed after centrifugal separation. The dispensing process is a process in which a child sample is generated from a parent sample. For example, dispensed child samples can be simultaneously transported to multiple analyzers that are connected to the system online. In addition, the dispensing process transports a child sample with the same barcode as that of a parent sample attached to a sorting tray for testing in an analyzer which is not connected to the system online. A sample that is completed with all processes is stored in a storage module.
The automated sample testing system is introduced in a relatively large facility where hundreds to thousands of samples are processed in a day. In such large facility, many samples are collected from one patient for multiple testing such as a biochemical test, an immunological test, a solidification test, and a hematological test. Therefore, the number of sample racks for the hundreds to thousands patients are needed for loading into the automated sample testing system, and accordingly, a space for installing and storing those sample racks is required.
As described in Patent Document 1, for a loading device that loads a sample rack into the conventional automated sample testing system, a method for setting a large number of sample racks in advance into the device in order to perform a process based on the sample type is known, for example. Further, Patent Document 2 describes that a certain number of sample racks are set on trays that are arranged in a sample rack supply unit and a rack collecting unit. The sample rack supply unit and the rack collecting unit are arranged at multiple stages so that sample racks are supplied and collected by an elevator mechanism that is driven and moves up and down. This, therefore, reduces the area for setting the sample racks. Patent Document 3 describes a method that a loading device is connected to an endless transport line and a sample rack is used repeatedly.